Team of the Year 2020: Citizen-Centred Innovation

Why this matters

For the third year in a row, Apolitical will be celebrating innovative, groundbreaking teams that get the job done through our Public Service Team of the Year Awards. This has been a challenging year, and public servants have been pushed to be more creative, innovative, and flexible than ever before — and we want to celebrate their work.

This award celebrates teams with a focus on innovative policy putting citizens’ needs at the heart of their work. We’re recognising teams that have trialled or implemented policy that can deliver citizen-centric innovation in the public sector and ultimately make people’s lives better.

How to Vote

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How we selected the finalists

Our team received hundreds of nominations from teams all over the world. We then reviewed each nomination individually, and a panel of judges at Apolitical decided on a shortlist of teams for each category.

Secretariat of Innovation and Public Engagement of the Municipality of San Pedro Garza García, Mexico

This team was nominated for their innovations in citizen-centred services, particularly through rapid and innovative responses to challenges presented by the Covid-19 pandemic. They introduced a citizen services chatbot, ‘Sam Petrino,’ that accumulates data through its interactions with users, and uses that data to improve the government’s operations. Other initiatives included a participatory budget, which citizens can democratically help decide how to spend, and a Children’s and Teenagers’ City Council, created to represent the children of the municipality in the government.

Still Here Campaign, Department of Justice, Ireland

With stay at home orders put in place across the globe, reports of domestic violence have been on the rise. The ‘Still Here Campaign,’ a collaborative approach between the Criminal Justice Policy, Transparency and Funds Administration teams in Ireland’s Department of Justice, seeks to adapt and increase support available to those experiencing domestic abuse. It also increases awareness of the support available to people who find themselves in a situation of domestic abuse.

COVID-19 Parenting experts, End Violence

As of the end of March, the Covid-19 outbreak has forced more than 1.5 billion children out of school and presented parents around the world with unprecedented challenges. To respond to school closures and isolation measures, a team of experts from the World Health Organization, UNICEF, End Violence, Internet of Good Things, Parenting for Lifelong Health, USAID, UKRI GCRF Accelerating Achievement for Africa’s Adolescents Hub, and the Centres for Disease Control created a new set of evidence-based resources for parents and caregivers to support their children’s growth. More than 78 million caregivers around the world have accessed these parenting tips.

Nudge//SP, the Behavioral Science Team from (011).lab – The Government Innovation Lab of the São Paulo City Hall, Brazil

The Covid-19 pandemic has required new behavioural changes, to slow the spread of the virus. The behavioural science team from (011).lab, the Government Innovation Lab of São Paulo City Hall, stepped up to the plate to introduce and implement these changes. One of their biggest initiatives this year has been sending text messages to citizens to inform them of how to stay safe (including wearing masks and keeping a distance of 2 metres from others). Before scaling the intervention to the wider population, they first tested different kinds of messaging to determine the best communication strategy, helping keep costs low and maximising the effectiveness of the initiative. Between August 10 and 14, approximately 8.24 million messages were sent to more than 2.7 million citizens.

May Day celebrations at the Virtual Helsinki, The City of Helsinki, Finland

Most years, Finland’s May Day celebrations see tens of thousands of people gathering together to celebrate the beginning of summer. This year, with the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the city had to get creative. The City of Helsinki invited the country to join a virtual concert, hosted in an online version of the capital city (the Virtual Helsinki), so they could celebrate May Day safely from home. The virtual gathering was completely free and accessible from anywhere in the world – so 1.5 million people logged on to join. The Virtual Helsinki can also be used in the future for other events, and the city wants to be a pioneering city of digital innovations.

The Emerging Stronger Conversations, Ministry of Culture, Community & Youth (MCCY), Singapore

Singapore’s Ministry of Culture, Community & Youth set up the ‘Emerging Stronger Conversations’, as a way for citizens to come together, talk about how they have been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, and discuss the vision they see for post-Covid Singapore. Fifty participants at a time can join these conversations via video chat, and they’re held in multiple languages so the voices of those who don’t speak English as a first language can still be heard. The Conversations give government the chance to hear citizens’ top concerns and respond accordingly.